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Concentrating on the competitive side of the hobby, but in no way limited to it.

Wednesday, 5 February 2014

Malifaux Masters Battle Reports - Part 1

Hello Sir#67 here to tell you about my latest Malifaux
antics.

A few weeks ago some of the best players in the country gathered together for the Malifaux Masters and somehow I
qualified!

For the people who are unfamiliar with the Masters format;
the Masters is an invitation only tournament held over two days. To qualify you
need to finish the year ranked somewhere in the top 16 Malifaux players as listed on Rankings HQ.

The players are split into four different groups with the
top four players in the UK are seeded so that one of the top four is present in
each group. The actual draw took place a week before the event and anyone could
listen in via conference call. Points for transparency there!

On day one you play each member of your group once and the
top two players in each group will go through to day two. Day two is a straight
knockout event.

I was in Group 2 with James Doxy (UK No 2), Jacob Senett and
Matt Ledgerwood. I’d never played any of these guys before so I had no idea
what to expect. I’ve been to some of the same events as James and know him to
be very good with Ramos but that was about it. I was taking my Neverborn. I’d
been playing Neverborn and Malifaux in general for about a year by the time the
Masters rolled round but my M2E experience is not the best (dam you Dropzone
Commander, you beguiling destraction you!) I was hoping to make it to day two
and to do that I’d have to finish at least 2nd in my group.

I’m terrible at recording battle reports and you don’t
really have time to take notes at the Masters so I’m not going to post proper
battle reports more just general thoughts. I've also totally forgotton which upgrades were taken by either side. If you just assume that I look Beckon Malifaux every time I played Lilith you shouldn't go far wrong.

Game 1: Recconoiter

Opponent: Matt Ledgerwood (Ressurectionists)

Crews:

Lilith

Bad Juju

2 x Waldgeist

Young Nephlim

2 x Terror Tot

Primordial Magic

Seamus

Hanged

Mortimer

Bette Noir

3 x Belle

Punk Zombie

This game kind of set the tone for the rest of the Masters.
We both played very cagey. I used Tangle Shadows to swap Bad Juju with Bette
Noir. This put Bad Juju in the middle of Mark’s crew and he proceeded to make a
nusience of himself. Lilith delt with Bette Noir with the rest of her ap and
Saemus blew the face off a terror tot I moved a little but to far up the table.
Bette Noir popped out of the tots corpse and Sameus made a belle. Bad Juju
repositioned slightly and cast Landslide. Landslide is an amazing spell, I
managed to catch 2 Belles and the Hanged in the pulse. Unfortunately I didn’t
manage to put slow on any of the models but I did get a 10, 12 and 13 out of
Marks deck.

The game devolved into a bit of a stalemate at this point. Neither
of us could make any real dent in each other’s crew. The Young Neph went down
and Lilith killed Bette/summoned Belles repeatedly. My other tot and the Illuminated
managed to drop markers for me to secure max points from break through and 1
from Power Ritual. Mark managed to score 2 points from Distract.

We had to call the game at the start of turn 4 and when
points were totalled up I managed to win 5-4.

Game 2: Turf War

Opponent: Jacob Sebnett

Crews:

Jacob Lynch

Huggy

3 Illuminated

Beckoner

Teddy

Nicodiem

Nurse

Bette Noir

Mortimer

Canine Remains

Punk Zombie

Crooked Man

Mortimer started off by digging up corpses for Nico to
summon from and Nico made a Hanged and some Punk Zombies. My models hung around
the edge of the scoring zone around the marker. Trying to take advantage of my
superior threat range.

Turn 2 and my Illuminated charged and killed the Canine
Remains, Bette popped up and proceeded to Red Joker my Illuminated. Nico
summoned a Canine Remains from the old dogs corpse and one of my illuminated
gave it a cursed object. Huggy double walked through a church to enguage half
of Jacobs crew. I’m pretty sure either Lynch or a Beckoner put Bette back into
the ground.

Again we hit a stalemate. I fed models into the zone to keep
scoring for Turf War and passed out some Cursed Objects. Huggy went down in
Turn 3 but I brought him back in Turn 4 to score for Bodyguard. Teddy went a
little bit wild but ended up being killed by the Hanged.

We were on even points
until one of the last activiatons of the game where Jacob killed his own model
denying me a point for Cursed Object resulting in a 9-8 loss to me.

I really should have been far more aggressive in this game.
If I had activated Jacob at the start of the turns instead of at the end for
extra cards, I could have cranked my crew’s damage out put enough to keep up
with the attrition battle.

Game 3: Reckoning

Opponent: James Doxy

Crews:

Lilith

Bad Juju

2 Waldgeist

Barbaros

2 Terror Tots

Primordial Magic

Ramos

Joss

Howard

Electrical Creation

2 Molemen

Metal Gamin

James moved his electrical creation forwards and Ramos used
magnetism to move towards it and kill it for scrap. He then proceded to summon
3 Steam Aracnids and arranged them in “Swarm formation” (all bases touching).
Lilith moved forwards and cast Tangle Shadows on one of the spiders, swapping
it with Bad Juju. She killed the spider in base to base with her and summoned a
forest to block Joss’ line of sight to Bad Juju. Bad Juju delivered the message
to Ramos and cast Landslide making Ramos Slow!

The two Molemen did their scheme marker thing and Howard set
off to smack one of my Tots. The Waldgeists set up some forests and Barbaros
hunkered down behind one and used his zero action to Challenge. Joss disgarded
Imbued Energies for Fast and used the extra ap to walk then charge Barbaros.
Joss missed with his first attack and Barbaros hit his defensive trigger
pushing Joss away again. For some reason we both forgot that Joss’ axe doesn’t
allow defensive triggers.

Turn 2 and Bad Juju punched a spider in the face and cast
Landslide again. Ramos used Magnetism to push towards the Metal Gamin. Lilith
cast Tangle Shadows on the Metal Gamin and took it down to it’s Hard to Kill
wound. Barbaros ended up next to Ramos as part of the Tangle Shadows. Howard
Langston murdered a Terror Tot and Barbaros hit Ramos. A combination of the
Repulse trigger and Barbaros’ weapon meant that he was able to nimble away and
plant a scheme marker.

The Waldgeists killed the Metal Gamin getting me a point for
Reckoning.

After that nothing changed in the subsequent turns. We both
got maximum points for our schemes. I took Protect Territory and Deliver a
Message, James took Break Through and Protect Territory. The single point I was
able to get for Recokoning in Turn 2 handed me a 7-6 victory.

I was really nervous going into this game. James had only
ever lost 1 game of competitive M2E up until this point and to be honest I was
expecting to either win my first 2 games and so stand a good chance of getting
out of the group or loose both my games and not progress.

Having to beat James
made things very interesting because if Jacob also won his game there would be
three players in our group with a 2-1 record and it would be soul stone
difference that would decide who went to day 2.

Thankfully Matt did James and I a favour by beating Jacob
and I progressed to the quarter finals.